


smokestacks

by aosc



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Multi, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 14:24:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14771358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: I am moved by fancies that are curledAround these images, and cling:The notion of some infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering thing.A unit composed of three less than compatible parts, which is nonetheless a unit. Or: the unlikely threeway partnership of Chloe, Nadine and Sam.





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> PLAYLIST:
> 
> layla: smokestacks  
> music super circus feat. jonathan johansson: made of  
> london grammar: non believer (groovy armada's revival edit)  
> ZHU, JOY.: stormy love, nm  
> iron & wine: serpent charmer
> 
>  
> 
> i’m still as out of my writing groove as i’ve been - ever. life’s thrown me for a round and i’m still figuring a lot of stuff out, so my presence here will probably be spottier still for a while. anyway, i picked up lost legacy long enough after its initial release for it to be considered an artifact worthy of the game plot, but i’d managed to avoid spoilers, and boy am i glad i did (on both accounts). i’ve been able to write tiny slices of life for it thus far, so i figured i’d just post the results, fuck it.

* * *

  
“You believe we begun this as mortal enemies, pretty much?” says Sam. He sucks in a breath and curls tighter into himself as a hail of bullets smatter into their crumbling stone cover.

 

“Sure I do,” says Chloe. “Catch!” she turns from Sam, and throws her P45, extracted from the limp grip of someone dead, Nadine’s way, “Since you keep your enemies the closest, and all that.”

 

Sam flings his gun up over the edge and fires an answering salve blindly. “That's not really how that saying goes; you keep your enemies clos _er_ , not strictly the clos _est_ – “

 

“Love,” Chloe interrupts, “I wasn’t going for correct, I was going for the sentiment. And do me a favor: shoot before you talk so much?”

 

*


	2. II

* * *

  
“You need a hand with that?” Chloe doesn’t wait for permission before moving in closer to Nadine’s back. The makeshift sling they’d fashioned out in the field’s gone shredded after the climb, and it’s grey with dirt and heavy with blood.

 

“I’m fine,” Nadine says.

 

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Right you are.”

 

Nadine twists around to glare at her. “I said I’m fine, Frazer.”

 

“Don’t you _Frazer_ me, it’s not going to work. Just let me take a look.”

 

Nadine purses her lips. “It can wait.”

 

“Sure, if you’d like to lose the arm, it can.”

 

“It can wait until we’re somewhere more secluded,” Nadine corrects. “We’re live targets out here.”

 

“Story of our lives,” Chloe shrugs.

 

“You doin’ okay, ladies?”

 

Chloe tilts her head in Sam’s direction. “Besides. We’re covered.”

 

“I wouldn’t call that ‘being covered’…”

 

“Hey,” says Sam, without looking away from the bend of the road ahead, “Give a guy some credit.”

 

“You heard him,” says Chloe. “Now c’mere.”

 

Nadine doesn’t oblige as much as she doesn’t pull away when Chloe puts one palm across the wet nape of her neck, and one on the upper of her arm. “Think you can keep it steady for me?”

 

Nadine snorts softly. “Who do you take me for,” she says, posing it rhetorically and not as a question.

 

“Point taken.” Chloe finds the hard knot of the sling resting in the hollow of Nadine’s collar. It’s soaked and coarse, hardening by now. Chloe bends down for the knife secured at her ankle. In hindsight, she wonders how many sticky situations she could’ve gotten herself out of in less painful manners, had she thought to bring not only a gun to a whatever fight. She slips it out of its sheath.

 

“Steady now,” she murmurs as she begins sawing through the flannel. Nadine squares her shoulders and tenses her elbow as much as she can. Her arm still jostles as the sling comes loose. To her credit, Chloe sees the tightening of her jaw because she’s gotten used to the minutiae of her expressions, not because it shows that she’s in any particular discomfort.

 

Nadine remains statuesque as Chloe tugs the strip of Sam’s undershirt he’d cut for the occasion from around her neck. “This is our best option?”

 

“Would you have preferred the old sling?”

 

“I would’ve preferred to not have done this now.”

 

“Trust me, doll, me too. You, however, are stubborn to the point that it’ll cock you up for the foreseeable future, unless I be the voice of reason here.”

 

“I see there’s nothing wrong with your self confidence.” Nadine grits her teeth, audible now, as Chloe tightens the sling.

 

“Eh, is there ever,” she replies. “All done. Was it really all awful?”

 

“Guys – you better be ready to move!” Sam’s voice is partially drowned for the drone of a chopper’s rotor moving into vicinity. Chloe moves before she thinks, tugging an arm around Nadine’s waist and diving for cover behind their Jeep just as a round of machine gun fire rains down from above.

 

*


End file.
